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is essential to successful wheat culture. A number of otherwise desirable varieties cannot be successfully grown on account of their lateness in maturing.

93. Variety Groups.-The different varieties can be divided easily into eight groups in accordance with three external characters as follows:

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instead of smooth, as is usually the case. The color of the grain varies from a light yellow, usually called white, to a deep red. In some cases the intermediate color is referred to as amber. In the markets wheat is referred to as either red or white. With the exceptions just noted, different varieties coming in any one of the eight groups will usually resemble each other closely and need to be subjected to a rigid test to determine their right to be called separate varieties. Beardless varieties with red berries are the most numerous and most generally cultivated. It has not been demonstrated that there is any difference in yield between red and white or bearded and beardless wheats. Two thousand years ago Columella recommended bearded wheats for low moist land and beard

less wheats for dry upland. The variety which the Ohio Station especially recommends for lowland is bearded, while the two highest yielding varieties upon upland soil in nine years' test are beardless. Some bearded varieties, however, have also yielded nearly as well upon upland soil. Red grains command the highest price because of their superior milling qualities.

New Wheats

Nils-innesota.155 149 157 1831 167 171 163 ML

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94. Desirable Qualities.-The three characteristics which determine the eight groups above are external and in themselves are not essential, although they may be correlated with essential qualities. son holds that the purely botanical characters have correlated with them such valuable economic ones that too much stress cannot be laid upon the value of a pure botanical variety. Some of the qualities which it is desirable to obtain in wheat are:

(1) High yield.

(2) Hardness and density of grain. (3) For some purposes and within certain limits high gluten content of superior quality.

(4) Early maturity (at least for some sections.)

(5) Resistance to drought.

(6) Resistance to rusts.

(7) Resistance to Hessian fly.

(8) Stiffness of straw.

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Some of these qualities are interdependent, as for example high yield and resistance to drought, rusts or Hessian fly, and some are probably antagonistic, as high yield and high gluten

content.

1 E. S. R. XIII (1902), p. 817.

95. Score Card.-Hays has proposed a score card for coinparing the performance of spring varieties of wheat, as follows: ' Percentage score card for comparing varieties of wheat:

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A graphic presentation of this score card is proposed, as shown in paragraph 94.

The markets of the country

96. Market Classification. recognize four types of wheat, which are grown in somewhat distinct areas of the country, although no sharp line can be drawn between these localities. They are as follows:

I. Soft winter, in eastern United States; climate mild, even and moist; spike either bearded or beardless, but principally the latter; color of grain varies from white to light red; per cent of gluten medium.

2. Hard winter, south of Minnesota and the Dakotas between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains; extremes of temperature and moisture with dry, hot summers; usually bearded; grain red, with per cent of gluten high.

3. Hard spring, in Minnesota, the Dakotas and northern Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska;2 climate too severe for winter varieties, otherwise like hard winter district; bearded or beardless; color of grain red and usually lacking in plumpness; per cent of gluten high.

4. White, in Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States; long season of growth; bearded or beardless; grain white, large and plump; per cent of gluten low.

1 Minn. Bul. 62 (1899), p. 432.

2 Central and western Canada also furnishes a large quantity of this type.

To what extent the varieties of these regions were made so directly by the environment under which they have been grown, and to what extent they are simply the survival of the fittest is still open to further investigation. To put it in other words, the characters may have been acquired through their present environment, or the present varieties may have been selected as the best of a large number of varieties tested in each region.

97. Soft Winter Varieties.-Seven stations, including Guelph, Canada, located east of the Mississippi River, have reported tests of varieties of wheat within the past decade. The following varieties have been reported as having given superior yields at two or more stations:

BEARDED, red or amber grain: Valley, Nigger, Mediterranean, Rudy, Fulcaster, Kansas Mortgage Lifter.

BEARDED, white grain: Early Genesee Giant.

BEARDLESS, red or amber grain: Mealy, Early Ripe, Poole, Currell's Prolific, New Monarch, Improved Poole, Fultz, Harvest King, Early Red Clawson.

BEARDLESS, white grain: Dawson's Golden Chaff.

Fultz is probably the most widely and universally grown variety of wheat in the United States. (103) It is what may be called a semihard, red-grained beardless variety with white smooth glumes. Red Fultz (synonyms, Poole and German Emperor) is also largely grown, but differs from Fultz in having bronze smooth glumes.

98. Hard Winter Varieties.-The favorite variety of the hard winter wheat is the Turkey (sometimes called Crimean), a bearded, hard red wheat, coming originally from Crimea and other portions of Laurida in southern Russia.

After testing the comparative hardiness and yield of 275 varieties of wheat, covering a series of years, the Kansas Station recommends three bearded varieties, Andrews No. 4, Turkey and Valley, and three beardless varieties, Tasmanian Red,

Ramsey and Currell.1 Sibley's New Golden (bearded) gave the largest average yield during six years at the Oklahoma Station.2

99. Hard Spring Varieties.-The two types of hard spring wheat of which there are many varieties are the Fife and the Blue Stem. Both are beardless with white glumes, which in the Blue Stem are covered with fine velvety hairs but in the Fife are smooth. The Minnesota Station after years of testing 200 varieties of wheat has selected two of the Fife type (Power's Fife and Glyndon) and two of the Blue Stem type (Bolton's Blue Stem and Haynes' Blue Stem) as the best four varieties for combined yield and quality. This station has also originated an improved strain of Glyndon under the name of Minnesota No. 163. Preston, a bearded variety, originated by Dr. William Saunders, Director of the Dominion Experiment Farms, Ottawa, Canada, has given good results at several stations.

Spring varieties of durum and macaroni wheats are now being recommended in the semiarid portion of the spring wheat district. South Dakota reports that macaroni wheat will yield from twenty-five to 100 per cent more than the best Blue Stem and Fife wheats, the difference in favor of the macaroni wheats increasing as the conditions for raising bread (common) wheat become less favorable. At the North Dakota Station the average yield of a number of durum (Russian) varieties during four years (1899-1902) was 30.3, while for the Blue Stem and Fife varieties combined it was 25.9 bushels.5

The reports from the Nebraska Station and from the Colorado Station are less favorable, while the Minnesota Station

1 Rpt. Kans. St. Bd. Agr. Quar. ending March, 1902, p. 76.

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